"Be mindful of the difference between being mad at a piece of reporting, and being mad with a piece of reporting." ^that's gonna stick in my head, great video!
"Fake news, fully fabricated and false news isnt the only way news can be bad or troublesome. And because a story is bad or troublesome,that doesn't make it fake. By unquestionably dismissing it as such,you may be doing yourself a disservice as a concerned citizen hoping to stay informed." Damn, that was deep. Kudos :)
I was going to ask why there wouldn't be a comment response video... then I read a few of the comments, many of which were sarcastic (at least, I hope that was sarcasm), or just unhappy that you chose to cover this topic (something you've already covered beautifully in this weeks comments vid), so maybe you guys have the gift of foresight afterall. Keep up the good work.
i may have missed it but perhaps the BIGGEST thing news outlets use is WORDS. for instance, if someone got killed and the news didn't think they were too important of a person, they'd just say so-and-so got killed. if the person was veiwed as very important they'd say he was brutally murdered. both phrases mean the same thing but they have very different EMOTIONAL impact. and the news uses your emotions to sway you to whatever side they want you on. next time you listen to the news keep an ear out for emotionally impactful words and ask yourself how things would change if you swapped in or out certain words.
real news publish corrections for their stories, with online ones usually at the very beginning of the article don't tell me you've never seen those...
Bonus fact: The old man in a beret at 6:58 is Meyer, the very gay janitor from the 1970's Danish tv series "Huset på Christianshavn" or "The house in Christian's Harbour"
This video turned out to be even better than I expected it to be, because it clued me in to some of the nature behind the sources I get my news from. I tend to trust comedy news shows because jokes, by virtue of being funny, have a way of revealing the truth.
"and were gonna talk about what isn't fake news by using Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Hermans book Manufacturing consent". I literally just came from the documentary about that from 1992, huh.
This is true for America. But most developed countries have a government funded news/media network operating autonomously. Here in Denmark we have DR (Danmarks Radio). No need for advertisement means reduced profit incentive, freeing the network to focus on quality over monetary value.
Regarding your point about cross-referencing, fake news outlets have done a very good job of using each other. I'm currently in the midst of a discussion about the fictional "no-go zones" in Sweden. When I tried to look up cross references regarding a supposed attack on Ami Horowitz, I found dozens of stories, some of which seemed pretty convincing until I dug deeper.
I think Terry Goodkind puts it best in his Sword of Truth book series: "Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they're afraid it might be true. Peoples' heads are full of knowledge, facts and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."
I'm doing a school project on denialism and how people can deny fact. what i've found is that it all goes back to psychology and how the human brain works. I just wanted to hear other opinions on the topic, obviously fake news is one example.
I think there is an aesthetic component that wasn't covered here. Which is simply, that fake news, thanks to technological advances, looks like real news. People like Alex Jones, who has a studio for his TH-cam channel with a blue colour template, a globe in the back ground and perhaps most importantly a desk. All of these are in a sense cultural signifiers of trustworthyness, authority. I suspect the easier access to these aesthetic cultural signifiers have strengthened so called "fake news" greatly.
I'm not entirely sure how to phrase this, but I think it's important to take into account when discussing this that the dominant ideology of the world, liberal capitalism¹, surrounds everything and it's very easy to gloss over the effect it has. For example, US liberalism is often viewed as left-wing, since the window of acceptable discourse is shifted quite far rightward, even though on the grander scale of political ideology it's quite far to the right. Even the authoritarian-libertarian divide used among other places in the "Political compass" is based on assumptions rooted in liberal axioms about what counts as liberties -- for example, when the UN adopted the declaration of human rights there were actually two "camps" suggesting different sorts of rights, with western liberal countries pushing for individual rights such as freedom of speech, private property, etc., and the USSR and its satellites pushing for more material collective rights that would guarantee the well-being of the masses but which most liberals would consider the state meddling in the lives of the individual too much. I've probably lost everyone by now with my rambling, but what I want to get across is that when considering what is and isn't "fake news", keep in mind that a dominant ideology exists, and that ideology affects both your views and how the media report on things, as well as how likely you are to consider ideas different from what is generally seen as common knowledge, even if, when given consideration, you might find that those ideas actually turn out to be supported by a lot of evidence. ¹ Yes, both US liberalism and conservatism falls under the umbrella of liberal ideology, as they are capitalist in nature and not fully fascist.
At risk of doing a "back in my day" despite being not nearly old enough to do a "back in my day." I remember when the hot topic in politics was whether media was "biased." I remember the big conservative assertion that the media had a "liberal bias," and the way Fox slipped in with it's well chosen slogan "Fair and Balanced" in order to appear to conservatives to be the fair alternative. I remember how scandalous it was when CBS aired some discredited documents that painted Bush in a negative light. Now, what is remarkable about that story is that doing so had actual consequences to CBS. While few were out and out claiming that the "liberal" media was fully fabricating stories, or that basic facts were simply invented and/or verifiably false, I think it had the effect of convincing many people to simply ignore what most media outlets reported if it disagreed with the viewer's previously held beliefs. Somewhere the distinction was lost (purposely) between critically consuming media and dismissing it. As you've obviously discussed, bias is inevitable. If bias is a reason to ignore news that otherwise conforms to journalistic standards, then the facade has fallen and we should all just acknowledge that media serves the purpose of cradling the worldviews of its consumers. I think that is part of the illusion. If you believe your media is challenging you but it actual fact it only ever agrees, then you have successfully stopped receiving new information.
Thanks for using this channel for this sort of topics, Mike. It might not be as fun as some other, more light-hearted episodes, but it's important and I'm glad you're using the range this channel has to reach people with videos that ask them to challenge what they read and hear. Two thumbs up!
So appropriate! My colleagues and I just did a discussion with our students about fake news and our responsibility as citizens to fact check the media.
So the public has taken over the job of creating FLAK. I have to wonder if and how lobbyist capitalize on this and if they pay to encourage the behavior?
I think another factor to consider when discussing fake news is sensationalism ("clickbait"). Now, this may seem a bit off-topic, but hear me out. Of course, sensationalism isn't in itself a bad thing (nor a new thing for that matter). It's just something that has become a necessity for news outlets, because it's simply more engaging for readers and creates more revenue. Still, it imposes a problem on the consumer (and at least tangentially drives real news towards the realm of fake news): An article may be considered "real news" by Chomskyan/Hermanian standards, but it may (and, in fact, is very likely to) still make extensive use of sensationalism (i.e. use of flashy words rather than more factual/appropriate ones). Hold this thought, it's crucial to understanding where the problem lies. Research has shown (Loftus & Palmer 1974; Yuille & Cutshell 1986) that language can, in second-hand accounts, effectively influence how we memorise certain events. Put simply, "intensity" of words will alter what you recall of/how you recall an event in the long term. Note: This may even lead to you believing that you saw X happen in event Z, while in reality X just did not happen at all. Back to sensationalism. Now, if we consider the article that's objectively "real news", but factor in that it makes use of sensationalism, it should become clear how it may be problematic. Of course, on the first reading of an article that exaggerates and makes flashy claims (albeit rooted in reality), we're going to give it a pass, because we know that's how journalism works. We can consciously disregard it. At first. As the study above has shown, however, it may well lead to us to remembering the event much differently than it originally was. THIS is where things get problematic. Of course, the initial article is perfectly valid in its claims, albeit perhaps a little over the top, but it leads directly into the realm of fake news in that it facilitates *more extreme/different* views of what, "objectively" speaking, is "reality". Of course, we cannot just stop consuming media. That'd be bad. Very bad, indeed. Likewise, we cannot forcefully make news outlets "quit" sensationalism. That doesn't work on any level, and sensationalism has always been a part of news reporting. But this is something that we, as consumers, must simply keep in mind. We have to pay more attention so as not to allow "real news" becoming objectively "fake news". I recently did a piece on this (from a psycholinguistic perspective) and couldn't resist sharing some thoughts. Pardon me. Anyway, great episode! A very important one too. Sources: Loftus, Elizabeth F., and Lohn C. Palmer (1974). “Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 13: 585-589. Print. Yuille, John C., and Judith L. Cutshell (1986). “A case study of eyewitness memory of a crime.” Journal of Applied Psychology 71.2: 291-301. Print.
Hang on, let me send this to the President... He said it had too many big words. He also said he had the best words, and that they should be using the best words. Aaaaaand he called it fake news. We're screwed.
Something else media companies do very often, while not technically "fake", is that they will put "emotional" words in their articles. They will pepper their articles with certain words that are designed to make you feel a specific emotion when reading the piece (anger, sadness, fear, joy, etc.) They know that if your are experiencing a specific emotion while reading certain piece it will make your brain come to a certain conclusion. Humans make their decisions largely based on emotion more so than logic and reasoning. So if you can make your audience feel a certain way, you can "force" the conclusion you want them to get to.
Great episode, would love another that tackles media bias as it seems that this is often confused with fake news. I have noticed that news outlets, especially online only outlets, have really pushed a political agenda and slanted their stories to cater to that demographic and this appears to have become more prevalent in the last decade.
The conflict between large organizations not being willing to take risks the consumer intellectually believes are required for a "high-quality" product and small, less risk-adverse organizations lacking the resources to make their product high-quality in other areas is common to many industries. It's most obvious in the media, perhaps because it's harder to pin down how more resources can lead to a better product when the product boils down to mere words, sounds, and/or images. If we ever figure out a good, general solution to this problem, we'll live in a much better world.
Implying that news is some sort of commodity that can be mass produced and sold. If we think of it that way(like everyone else seems to), then the goal of news is to sell(which fake news does magnificently). Sometimes quality isn't what you think it is.
Zarko Cekovski Why does discussing the quality of news instantly make it mass-produced schlock? You can talk about the quality of, say, fine art or football games or high-fives, too; some of those are better than others, however common or scarce they are. Also...it is commercialized. (It's not a commodity, since that requires homogeneity, but you don't seem to be intending that.) It probably shouldn't be, but it is.
You mean, after Pewdiepie TWICE put inflammatory stuff on his channel, hoping it would get a buzz going and get him more followers. And TWICE he complained "Oh God, why are all these news media people reporting on what I say?" I mean, PewDiePie should not be real news. But he knew what he was doing. And this is coming from a fan of the new avant-garde format of the Pewds
There's a lot of people who use Hitler and the Nazis as a joke. Just look at "The Producers". Context is a big factor in this. Pewdiepie wasn't saying "Hey, look at me, I like Hitler and I'm a Nazi". He was showing that the TH-cam Hero thing was like being a Nazi, because it was something that could be easily use to stop the flow of free speech, and the 2nd being that there's people out there willing to do anything for money, even if it's five bucks.
@Moonbeam How did they take pewdiepie out of context? Because every article I've read about this situation has not been calling pewdiepie a nazi or hitler like you suggest they have been doing.
Brady Hilgenberg this isn't the first time discussions like this were needed as Chomsky wrote Manufacturing Consent with Herman back in 1988. This has been an issue before we just have a new label.
Brady Hilgenberg This has always been a topic that needs to be discussed, literally as long as there has been news there have been people spreading false and misleading iinformation.
Be glad, in fact be jubilant and proud of all those who fought to make it this way, that we live in a time where this conversation is allowed to be had. I agree with your sentiment. But advocate a "Yes its bad, but it could be so much worse. Don't throw your hands up in despair, look to the future and what you can do to help make things better. Even if its just refusing to let them get any worse.
fake news doesn't necessarily need to be completely fabricated it can be cherry picked or taken out of context, and twisted into something its not the whole pewdiepie nazi "scandal" is a perfect example. i do agree that people do misuse the term fake news to discredit real news though.
This really applies so much more to liberal news too. When my conservative friends tell me something and I think "that can't be right," usually it's not, it's not even close. But that stuff is really easy to check. (I'm thinking about pizzagate.) When my liberal friends tell me something and I think "that can't be right," usually it almost is. The words they chose were sloppy, one extra plot point was added, it's _almost_ real news. Without doing deep research, even careful people can be duped. (Thinking about when I heard from several people it was _proven_ that the FBI rigged the election against Clinton, when really that one dude had only just been formally charged, and the cited evidence was circumstantial and third-hand and obviously still in process.) Real news with a propaganda function can do so much more lasting damage than out-and-out lies.
I think the basis of the problem Mike is trying to address is the vast overuse of the term "fake news" in the past several months. You're right, in that cherry-picking, lack of context, etc. are bad practices, but they don't necessarily equate to fake. Call it what it is: "This news is cherry-picked," or, "This is out of context;" just calling everything fake is lazy and disingenuous. In addition, if you call something out for bad news practices, please provide evidence. I've seen too many times lately, where someone calls a piece of news biased or something and then utterly fails to back up their claim. Proof is the basis of rational thought, and is very necessary if we are to carry on informed discussion.
So how was the pewdiepie thing fake news? The actual fake news I've seen surrounding that event is people on the internet making up what the media, such as the WSJ, have actually said. For instance, I keep reading people saying the WSJ called pewdiepie a racist or an anti-Semite, which isn't true. Often what we hear called fake news by reactionaries on the internet is just them not reading the news article for themselves.
@Travis Poppenhusen ok that makes sense, call it what you want bad practices are bad practices and its only gotten worse over the last 8 years and especially horrendous during and after this last election on both sides of the aisle and discussing bad reporting should be a more important topic then term choice
I hope you're being hyperbolic when you say "all". Think about all the people who watch idea channel who have never checked any of the sources used. They need this video as well.
This is a wonderfully thought out video, my school just finished a media literacy and fake news unit and watching this only makes me more eager to cross check information and fact check news and media as a whole. Also, huge fan of this show thanks for making amazing content.
Matpat on The Film Theorists covered this around Christmas. His argument: Advertising-Platforms don't care about their own content, only the number of eyeballs on their advertisements.
Scarlet Letter I'd argue they are. Just at the "Johnny, sometimes it's good to share, and when Susie asks to play with your toys, it's not ok to punch her" level. That said, I think there's some issue with the content curve in the middle.
One thing I'm worried about is that growing awareness of "fake news" may just help people get stuck further in their bubbles, since news that flatters their views they will think "of course it's real", news that contradicts their views they will dismiss as "fake news". What people should do is investigate the source and look up whether or not there are other sources which contradict it, and check out fact-checking sites such as snopes, but most people won't do that. People are too comfortable living in their own bubbles, and also people don't want to risk learning something which may lead them to opinions their friends will disagree with.
Here's an idea: Instead of a comment response video, you put your own channel through the process of filters you described in this episode. That would be pretty amazing.
Last year someone shared an interesting analysis titled "Mixed Messages," published by the American Friends Service Committee, on how major news organisations manufacture consent in regards to responses to violent extremism and how the media rarely even mentions non-violent responses to violence.
[clever comment pointing out that you rustled our jimmies but aren't doing a comment response video thus silencing us and thereby making you fake news] SAD!!!
James Dickson Gosh, I hope that was meant to be a troll post. Although it wouldn't be a particularly good one, I'm not sure how one could watch that video and conclude that not discussing comments makes it "fake news". Newsflash: this video isn't (or even trying to be) news. It's commentary meant to help people understand what fake news is, since so many prominent figures (and, by extension, their followers and even the public at large) evidently are misinformed.
Really enjoyed the video, but there was a persistent, low frequency hum throughout the whole video. It wasn't present in the transitions (regular "Idea Channel" intro, "Filter 1" card, "Filter 2" card, etc.), so I suspect it was something captured on set and not caught in post. #JustAudioEngineerThings
Your idealism is admirable in these times. I showed my dad a video from PBS idea channel and his comment was that it was bias... I pray we are approaching a time when being agreeable is unusual, controversial, and interesting...
Andrew Arno's book " alarming reports" is also good. it states that news serves to bring to light conflict that people then interpret. in this sense news works to generate discussion and affirm identity
As a fandom columnist, I do spot yellow journalism from my fellows that consciously over-simplify the matters at hand and unfortunately enables a discourse that have unflattering consequences on the fandom itself. One example is the conspiracy that there's a massive hatred against the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom, that gets perpetuated by major Sonic the Hedgehog news outlets. it's not "Fake News", but it's a conspiracy based heavily on privilege, which the practice of over-simplification mainly stems from. Why we ended up with the term "EDM" for an array of different music genres, is also a great example of that.
>never in my life has reality been a matter of opinion and not of documented, verified facts. It has been this way at least since the beginning of religion.
I appreciated this episode especially when it comes to people's constant concerns (or at least constant from my observation) that they're *overreacting* to news in the current cycle - that 'maybe we're just reading too much into (X element of the present American administration)?' I do believe it is important to view the news intensely to see whether they're just riling you up, but it's also noteworthy just how hard that is. Sometimes legitimately dark things are happening all at once, and the instinct to assume your neck of the global village tends toward goodness and justice and isn't descending into dystopia clashes with watching bad political engagement in the news from people who know what they're aiming for. But there is also a kind of hyping up that bad political engagement that exists to pander to fear, rather than inform and challenge. And when you're already being hypervigilant of people and policies trying to destroy you, it becomes difficult both to tell the difference and to tell the difference between people asking you to be critical of news sources pandering to fear, and people altering that to tell you that you have no reason to fear at all.
This video has a highly American slant (understandably), and doesn't discuss the role of public service news outlets such as BBC or the Swedish SVT and SR. Neither of the latter two are ad supported (and I assume the same is true of BBC). Does this in your opinion affect the political discussion in those countries?
There are quite a few scientific studies showing a correlation between public service media regimes and more culturally and politically knowledgable populaces. Public service broadcaster remove a fair few of the filters from the equation.
VorpalGun when the left accuse the BBC of being in the pockets of the wealthy right wing politicians, and the right accuse the BBC of being run by loony lefties, you know you've found one of the most unbiased sources in the world.
1: When you described the "propaganda function", I thought back to those Saturday morning cartoons I grew up with in the late Cold War era (born '79). The theme was the same across the board: there are good guys, there are bad guys, good guys win and you're one of the good guys. Fast forward to today, and we are among the most decisive times I have ever seen. The us changes, the them changes, but it's almost like that distilled tale told over and over made us think that's how life should be.
Very good job on the script Mike! I think it's going to be a good point of reference for the present and the near future. A couple of things to point out: - Very nice to make 0 references to the current political climate and situation (just a couple ambiguous ones at the beggining) so this will more calm and less flame war but although i can understand why you aren't going to make comment responses for this one i don't know if it's really the better option or idea. - Thank you a lot for delimiting every time the differences between real life reporting and fake news reporting. Nowadays i feel like many people firstly believe that everything is white or black and secondly don't seem to know or realize the great difficulties associated with responsible journalism. A good investigative journalist has to skirt to all the different obstacles of different opinions, conflicts of interests on sources and many other things but at the end reality has many different perspectives accessible (there is not possible 100% complete objective news) and them having an opinion doesn't mean they're trying to convert you to their cause. Also real journalism is accountable and that's extremely important, fake news just get away with it with no problem. - Unfortunately, the most worrying stuff of this false positive (fakes) on news is how many people when confronted their point of view with reality they get to the point of denying complete videos with all the context and not editing just by doing the most extreme of mental gymnastics. Anyways, thanks for the video. Very insigthful. Also showing how good old Chomsky was already talking about this 30 years ago.
This is unquestionably the best video idea channel has ever done, I'm SO happy you guys chose to tackle this subject!
I know right? I'm a huge fan of Manufacturing Consent, so I was ecstatic to see this!
Tears... literal tears ran down my face when I saw this was the topic.
I hereby award PBS Idea Channel with the "best fake 'not fake' news" of journalism award of all time.
Here's an idea: W is the only letter that doesn't have the sound it makes in it's name. That is unfair. I say it should be known now as wigglewoo.
in certain accents, the letter H has no starting consonant, so it doesn't include its sound.
John Wolfenden double u W
still has the ch at the end.
What about Q? It's sounded as Cue or Kew, and if you sound it out it makes a Kwe sound if not at the end of words..
John Wolfenden I SUPPORT THIS A 100%
“HEY! THAT’S A PROPAGANDA!”
"Be mindful of the difference between being mad at a piece of reporting, and being mad with a piece of reporting."
^that's gonna stick in my head, great video!
"There will be no comment response video because I can see the flames from here."
"Fake news, fully fabricated and false news isnt the only way news can be bad or troublesome. And because a story is bad or troublesome,that doesn't make it fake. By unquestionably dismissing it as such,you may be doing yourself a disservice as a concerned citizen hoping to stay informed."
Damn, that was deep. Kudos :)
I was going to ask why there wouldn't be a comment response video... then I read a few of the comments, many of which were sarcastic (at least, I hope that was sarcasm), or just unhappy that you chose to cover this topic (something you've already covered beautifully in this weeks comments vid), so maybe you guys have the gift of foresight afterall. Keep up the good work.
i may have missed it but perhaps the BIGGEST thing news outlets use is WORDS. for instance, if someone got killed and the news didn't think they were too important of a person, they'd just say so-and-so got killed.
if the person was veiwed as very important they'd say he was brutally murdered.
both phrases mean the same thing but they have very different EMOTIONAL impact. and the news uses your emotions to sway you to whatever side they want you on.
next time you listen to the news keep an ear out for emotionally impactful words and ask yourself how things would change if you swapped in or out certain words.
A lie by mistake is still a lie.
You just don't hold them accountable for dishonest and instead hold them accountable for lack of responsibility.
You also need to acknowledge the things that ARE true though, that's the point.
real news publish corrections for their stories, with online ones usually at the very beginning of the article
don't tell me you've never seen those...
I do agree. Politicians just do not talk truth but dance around the truth
a lie by mistake is different from a lie on purpose. that's the crux of fake news vs credible media.
Bonus fact: The old man in a beret at 6:58 is Meyer, the very gay janitor from the 1970's Danish tv series "Huset på Christianshavn" or "The house in Christian's Harbour"
I have a feeling that "fake news" is trying to be defined as "that item is not worth paying attention to" rather than true or false.
I do not normally post - but thank you all PBS Idea channel and all that you all do. Love love love
This video turned out to be even better than I expected it to be, because it clued me in to some of the nature behind the sources I get my news from.
I tend to trust comedy news shows because jokes, by virtue of being funny, have a way of revealing the truth.
"and were gonna talk about what isn't fake news by using Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Hermans book Manufacturing consent".
I literally just came from the documentary about that from 1992, huh.
This kind of thing is why I think philosophy and it's critical thinking skills needs to be part of the public curriculum.
This is true for America. But most developed countries have a government funded news/media network operating autonomously. Here in Denmark we have DR (Danmarks Radio). No need for advertisement means reduced profit incentive, freeing the network to focus on quality over monetary value.
Regarding your point about cross-referencing, fake news outlets have done a very good job of using each other. I'm currently in the midst of a discussion about the fictional "no-go zones" in Sweden. When I tried to look up cross references regarding a supposed attack on Ami Horowitz, I found dozens of stories, some of which seemed pretty convincing until I dug deeper.
Yeah that is what we called circular reporting.
I think Terry Goodkind puts it best in his Sword of Truth book series: "Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they're afraid it might be true. Peoples' heads are full of knowledge, facts and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."
I want that fucking shirt.
xNaruto420x ikr
It's so sad. We live in a Cyberpunk time but I still don't have a Direct Neural Interface.
I'm doing a school project on denialism and how people can deny fact. what i've found is that it all goes back to psychology and how the human brain works. I just wanted to hear other opinions on the topic, obviously fake news is one example.
Manufacturing consent is such a good resource.
That first sentence is something that nobody has ever really managed to say. Thank you.
I think there is an aesthetic component that wasn't covered here. Which is simply, that fake news, thanks to technological advances, looks like real news.
People like Alex Jones, who has a studio for his TH-cam channel with a blue colour template, a globe in the back ground and perhaps most importantly a desk. All of these are in a sense cultural signifiers of trustworthyness, authority. I suspect the easier access to these aesthetic cultural signifiers have strengthened so called "fake news" greatly.
These filters can be applied to Idea Channel as well. I imagine the "Flak" filter in particular looms very large.
Easiest and most helpful way to support true news vs fake news: support your local library.
I'm not entirely sure how to phrase this, but I think it's important to take into account when discussing this that the dominant ideology of the world, liberal capitalism¹, surrounds everything and it's very easy to gloss over the effect it has. For example, US liberalism is often viewed as left-wing, since the window of acceptable discourse is shifted quite far rightward, even though on the grander scale of political ideology it's quite far to the right.
Even the authoritarian-libertarian divide used among other places in the "Political compass" is based on assumptions rooted in liberal axioms about what counts as liberties -- for example, when the UN adopted the declaration of human rights there were actually two "camps" suggesting different sorts of rights, with western liberal countries pushing for individual rights such as freedom of speech, private property, etc., and the USSR and its satellites pushing for more material collective rights that would guarantee the well-being of the masses but which most liberals would consider the state meddling in the lives of the individual too much.
I've probably lost everyone by now with my rambling, but what I want to get across is that when considering what is and isn't "fake news", keep in mind that a dominant ideology exists, and that ideology affects both your views and how the media report on things, as well as how likely you are to consider ideas different from what is generally seen as common knowledge, even if, when given consideration, you might find that those ideas actually turn out to be supported by a lot of evidence.
¹ Yes, both US liberalism and conservatism falls under the umbrella of liberal ideology, as they are capitalist in nature and not fully fascist.
It's when you make videos like this one that I wish that everyone I know spoke English, just so I could show it to them.
That was such a detailed intro that I didn't even notice what your shirt said till about 3 mins in and started cracking up.
I think I love you a little bit. Thank you for doing this video. I'll be showing it in my History vs. Pseudo-History class next Tuesday. Thank you!
"To convene a flak machine" what s delightful rhyme.
You earned so much respect by mentioning Noam Chomsky
Given that the BBC is funded mainly by the tv-license, what biases might it have and are they that different from most broadcasters?
If I can read a story as my grandfather yelling in a fit of irrational rage then I immediately don't trust it.
At risk of doing a "back in my day" despite being not nearly old enough to do a "back in my day."
I remember when the hot topic in politics was whether media was "biased." I remember the big conservative assertion that the media had a "liberal bias," and the way Fox slipped in with it's well chosen slogan "Fair and Balanced" in order to appear to conservatives to be the fair alternative. I remember how scandalous it was when CBS aired some discredited documents that painted Bush in a negative light. Now, what is remarkable about that story is that doing so had actual consequences to CBS.
While few were out and out claiming that the "liberal" media was fully fabricating stories, or that basic facts were simply invented and/or verifiably false, I think it had the effect of convincing many people to simply ignore what most media outlets reported if it disagreed with the viewer's previously held beliefs. Somewhere the distinction was lost (purposely) between critically consuming media and dismissing it. As you've obviously discussed, bias is inevitable. If bias is a reason to ignore news that otherwise conforms to journalistic standards, then the facade has fallen and we should all just acknowledge that media serves the purpose of cradling the worldviews of its consumers. I think that is part of the illusion. If you believe your media is challenging you but it actual fact it only ever agrees, then you have successfully stopped receiving new information.
It's fitting that a video based on Chomsky's work would include something mocking Źiźek.
Thanks for using this channel for this sort of topics, Mike. It might not be as fun as some other, more light-hearted episodes, but it's important and I'm glad you're using the range this channel has to reach people with videos that ask them to challenge what they read and hear. Two thumbs up!
So appropriate! My colleagues and I just did a discussion with our students about fake news and our responsibility as citizens to fact check the media.
So the public has taken over the job of creating FLAK. I have to wonder if and how lobbyist capitalize on this and if they pay to encourage the behavior?
Had me at 'Manufacturing Consent'. Both the book and the documentary are facking amazing.
Chomsky is an irreplaceable genius.
Aw heck yes, I hoped you would tie this to Chomksy.
Thank you, Mike. You say things clearly and articulately, you help make the world understandable.
I think another factor to consider when discussing fake news is sensationalism ("clickbait"). Now, this may seem a bit off-topic, but hear me out.
Of course, sensationalism isn't in itself a bad thing (nor a new thing for that matter). It's just something that has become a necessity for news outlets, because it's simply more engaging for readers and creates more revenue. Still, it imposes a problem on the consumer (and at least tangentially drives real news towards the realm of fake news): An article may be considered "real news" by Chomskyan/Hermanian standards, but it may (and, in fact, is very likely to) still make extensive use of sensationalism (i.e. use of flashy words rather than more factual/appropriate ones). Hold this thought, it's crucial to understanding where the problem lies.
Research has shown (Loftus & Palmer 1974; Yuille & Cutshell 1986) that language can, in second-hand accounts, effectively influence how we memorise certain events. Put simply, "intensity" of words will alter what you recall of/how you recall an event in the long term. Note: This may even lead to you believing that you saw X happen in event Z, while in reality X just did not happen at all. Back to sensationalism.
Now, if we consider the article that's objectively "real news", but factor in that it makes use of sensationalism, it should become clear how it may be problematic. Of course, on the first reading of an article that exaggerates and makes flashy claims (albeit rooted in reality), we're going to give it a pass, because we know that's how journalism works. We can consciously disregard it. At first. As the study above has shown, however, it may well lead to us to remembering the event much differently than it originally was. THIS is where things get problematic. Of course, the initial article is perfectly valid in its claims, albeit perhaps a little over the top, but it leads directly into the realm of fake news in that it facilitates *more extreme/different* views of what, "objectively" speaking, is "reality".
Of course, we cannot just stop consuming media. That'd be bad. Very bad, indeed. Likewise, we cannot forcefully make news outlets "quit" sensationalism. That doesn't work on any level, and sensationalism has always been a part of news reporting. But this is something that we, as consumers, must simply keep in mind. We have to pay more attention so as not to allow "real news" becoming objectively "fake news".
I recently did a piece on this (from a psycholinguistic perspective) and couldn't resist sharing some thoughts. Pardon me. Anyway, great episode! A very important one too.
Sources:
Loftus, Elizabeth F., and Lohn C. Palmer (1974). “Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 13: 585-589. Print.
Yuille, John C., and Judith L. Cutshell (1986). “A case study of eyewitness memory of a crime.” Journal of Applied Psychology 71.2: 291-301. Print.
I don't know if this was on purpose but you sound almost like Walter Kronkite in this one. Lower tone and slower pacing. Well done either way.
I LOVE YOUR FILTHY CASUAL SWEATSHIRT
Hang on, let me send this to the President...
He said it had too many big words. He also said he had the best words, and that they should be using the best words.
Aaaaaand he called it fake news. We're screwed.
Something else media companies do very often, while not technically "fake", is that they will put "emotional" words in their articles. They will pepper their articles with certain words that are designed to make you feel a specific emotion when reading the piece (anger, sadness, fear, joy, etc.) They know that if your are experiencing a specific emotion while reading certain piece it will make your brain come to a certain conclusion. Humans make their decisions largely based on emotion more so than logic and reasoning. So if you can make your audience feel a certain way, you can "force" the conclusion you want them to get to.
I adore your news anchor impression, good job~
Great episode, would love another that tackles media bias as it seems that this is often confused with fake news. I have noticed that news outlets, especially online only outlets, have really pushed a political agenda and slanted their stories to cater to that demographic and this appears to have become more prevalent in the last decade.
Idea Channel please make a video on the amount of fake information and reliance on fake news in your youtube comments pls
The last few episodes have been great.
The conflict between large organizations not being willing to take risks the consumer intellectually believes are required for a "high-quality" product and small, less risk-adverse organizations lacking the resources to make their product high-quality in other areas is common to many industries. It's most obvious in the media, perhaps because it's harder to pin down how more resources can lead to a better product when the product boils down to mere words, sounds, and/or images.
If we ever figure out a good, general solution to this problem, we'll live in a much better world.
Implying that news is some sort of commodity that can be mass produced and sold. If we think of it that way(like everyone else seems to), then the goal of news is to sell(which fake news does magnificently). Sometimes quality isn't what you think it is.
Zarko Cekovski Why does discussing the quality of news instantly make it mass-produced schlock? You can talk about the quality of, say, fine art or football games or high-fives, too; some of those are better than others, however common or scarce they are.
Also...it is commercialized. (It's not a commodity, since that requires homogeneity, but you don't seem to be intending that.) It probably shouldn't be, but it is.
I love this channel
After what happened to Pewdiepie, I trust news and the media even less. Even the "legit" news lies about things all the time.
You mean, after Pewdiepie TWICE put inflammatory stuff on his channel, hoping it would get a buzz going and get him more followers. And TWICE he complained "Oh God, why are all these news media people reporting on what I say?"
I mean, PewDiePie should not be real news. But he knew what he was doing. And this is coming from a fan of the new avant-garde format of the Pewds
They still took what he said out of context. They still lied.
There's a lot of people who use Hitler and the Nazis as a joke. Just look at "The Producers". Context is a big factor in this. Pewdiepie wasn't saying "Hey, look at me, I like Hitler and I'm a Nazi". He was showing that the TH-cam Hero thing was like being a Nazi, because it was something that could be easily use to stop the flow of free speech, and the 2nd being that there's people out there willing to do anything for money, even if it's five bucks.
@Moonbeam
How did they take pewdiepie out of context? Because every article I've read about this situation has not been calling pewdiepie a nazi or hitler like you suggest they have been doing.
They were editing the the videos in such a way where they cut out the context and made it look he was making the joke just because.
In before, "When did this channel get so political"
Referenced Manufacturing Consent - drops a like immediately.
I can't believe we live in a time where this conversation even needs to be had.
Brady Hilgenberg this isn't the first time discussions like this were needed as Chomsky wrote Manufacturing Consent with Herman back in 1988. This has been an issue before we just have a new label.
Brady Hilgenberg This has always been a topic that needs to be discussed, literally as long as there has been news there have been people spreading false and misleading iinformation.
Be glad, in fact be jubilant and proud of all those who fought to make it this way, that we live in a time where this conversation is allowed to be had.
I agree with your sentiment. But advocate a "Yes its bad, but it could be so much worse. Don't throw your hands up in despair, look to the future and what you can do to help make things better. Even if its just refusing to let them get any worse.
It needs to be had in every time.
Studying that stuff in uni, wrote an essay about it recently!
"A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies."
- Alfred Tennyson
fake news doesn't necessarily need to be completely fabricated it can be cherry picked or taken out of context, and twisted into something its not the whole pewdiepie nazi "scandal" is a perfect example. i do agree that people do misuse the term fake news to discredit real news though.
This! So much this. The wage gape is based upon statistics being out of context.
This really applies so much more to liberal news too.
When my conservative friends tell me something and I think "that can't be right," usually it's not, it's not even close. But that stuff is really easy to check. (I'm thinking about pizzagate.)
When my liberal friends tell me something and I think "that can't be right," usually it almost is. The words they chose were sloppy, one extra plot point was added, it's _almost_ real news. Without doing deep research, even careful people can be duped. (Thinking about when I heard from several people it was _proven_ that the FBI rigged the election against Clinton, when really that one dude had only just been formally charged, and the cited evidence was circumstantial and third-hand and obviously still in process.)
Real news with a propaganda function can do so much more lasting damage than out-and-out lies.
I think the basis of the problem Mike is trying to address is the vast overuse of the term "fake news" in the past several months. You're right, in that cherry-picking, lack of context, etc. are bad practices, but they don't necessarily equate to fake. Call it what it is: "This news is cherry-picked," or, "This is out of context;" just calling everything fake is lazy and disingenuous.
In addition, if you call something out for bad news practices, please provide evidence. I've seen too many times lately, where someone calls a piece of news biased or something and then utterly fails to back up their claim. Proof is the basis of rational thought, and is very necessary if we are to carry on informed discussion.
So how was the pewdiepie thing fake news? The actual fake news I've seen surrounding that event is people on the internet making up what the media, such as the WSJ, have actually said. For instance, I keep reading people saying the WSJ called pewdiepie a racist or an anti-Semite, which isn't true. Often what we hear called fake news by reactionaries on the internet is just them not reading the news article for themselves.
@Travis Poppenhusen ok that makes sense, call it what you want bad practices are bad practices and its only gotten worse over the last 8 years and especially horrendous during and after this last election on both sides of the aisle and discussing bad reporting should be a more important topic then term choice
Talk more about Noam Chomsky
Its a shame that all the people who need to see this video will never see it
I hope you're being hyperbolic when you say "all". Think about all the people who watch idea channel who have never checked any of the sources used. They need this video as well.
This is a wonderfully thought out video, my school just finished a media literacy and fake news unit and watching this only makes me more eager to cross check information and fact check news and media as a whole.
Also, huge fan of this show thanks for making amazing content.
On The Media is my favorite! Thanks for plugging them.
Brilliant video, thanks for the knowledge
There's an understated genius to this guy. I like him.
This video really moved me for some reason. Great job keep up the good work
Educational!
Matpat on The Film Theorists covered this around Christmas. His argument: Advertising-Platforms don't care about their own content, only the number of eyeballs on their advertisements.
Here an idea; what if the humanities were taught as early as kindergarten, or better yet, preschool?
Scarlet Letter I'd argue they are. Just at the "Johnny, sometimes it's good to share, and when Susie asks to play with your toys, it's not ok to punch her" level. That said, I think there's some issue with the content curve in the middle.
One thing I'm worried about is that growing awareness of "fake news" may just help people get stuck further in their bubbles, since news that flatters their views they will think "of course it's real", news that contradicts their views they will dismiss as "fake news".
What people should do is investigate the source and look up whether or not there are other sources which contradict it, and check out fact-checking sites such as snopes, but most people won't do that. People are too comfortable living in their own bubbles, and also people don't want to risk learning something which may lead them to opinions their friends will disagree with.
Dude, you had me at "Chomsky".
Here's an idea: Instead of a comment response video, you put your own channel through the process of filters you described in this episode. That would be pretty amazing.
Journalism major here, thanks for paying attention to this issue!
This is the exact paper I just finished writing for my graduate class in mass media. Beat you by 2 weeks :P
Such a great video!!
I blame the 24 hour news networks the line between news and editorials was already thin, the need to fill a 24 hour cycle removed it entirely.
Thank you. Well done.
Side note: I REALLY need that "Filthy Casual" sweater.
props
Last year someone shared an interesting analysis titled "Mixed Messages," published by the American Friends Service Committee, on how major news organisations manufacture consent in regards to responses to violent extremism and how the media rarely even mentions non-violent responses to violence.
Thanks for this.
[clever comment pointing out that you rustled our jimmies but aren't doing a comment response video thus silencing us and thereby making you fake news]
SAD!!!
James Dickson well, the comments are on. You can still express how your jimmies are rustled
James Dickson Gosh, I hope that was meant to be a troll post. Although it wouldn't be a particularly good one, I'm not sure how one could watch that video and conclude that not discussing comments makes it "fake news". Newsflash: this video isn't (or even trying to be) news. It's commentary meant to help people understand what fake news is, since so many prominent figures (and, by extension, their followers and even the public at large) evidently are misinformed.
It was sarcasm. But how awful is it that general discourse has devolved to the point that sarcasm can't be readily identified.
Really enjoyed the video, but there was a persistent, low frequency hum throughout the whole video. It wasn't present in the transitions (regular "Idea Channel" intro, "Filter 1" card, "Filter 2" card, etc.), so I suspect it was something captured on set and not caught in post.
#JustAudioEngineerThings
Top Tier work here
Your idealism is admirable in these times. I showed my dad a video from PBS idea channel and his comment was that it was bias... I pray we are approaching a time when being agreeable is unusual, controversial, and interesting...
Andrew Arno's book " alarming reports" is also good. it states that news serves to bring to light conflict that people then interpret. in this sense news works to generate discussion and affirm identity
As a fandom columnist, I do spot yellow journalism from my fellows that consciously over-simplify the matters at hand and unfortunately enables a discourse that have unflattering consequences on the fandom itself.
One example is the conspiracy that there's a massive hatred against the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom, that gets perpetuated by major Sonic the Hedgehog news outlets. it's not "Fake News", but it's a conspiracy based heavily on privilege, which the practice of over-simplification mainly stems from. Why we ended up with the term "EDM" for an array of different music genres, is also a great example of that.
I hate the feeling of finding the sources for news
I feel like im writing a high school report every time
I don't know what reality is anymore. I'll just assume I know nothing, and then wait for history to tell me what was really going on in retrospect.
To the best of my memory, never in my life has reality been a matter of opinion and not of documented, verified facts.
Sometimes, it matters more that people think the mountain isn't there than that it is.
I have bad news for you then.
>never in my life has reality been a matter of opinion and not of documented, verified facts.
It has been this way at least since the beginning of religion.
Hmm... he has a point.
I appreciated this episode especially when it comes to people's constant concerns (or at least constant from my observation) that they're *overreacting* to news in the current cycle - that 'maybe we're just reading too much into (X element of the present American administration)?' I do believe it is important to view the news intensely to see whether they're just riling you up, but it's also noteworthy just how hard that is. Sometimes legitimately dark things are happening all at once, and the instinct to assume your neck of the global village tends toward goodness and justice and isn't descending into dystopia clashes with watching bad political engagement in the news from people who know what they're aiming for. But there is also a kind of hyping up that bad political engagement that exists to pander to fear, rather than inform and challenge. And when you're already being hypervigilant of people and policies trying to destroy you, it becomes difficult both to tell the difference and to tell the difference between people asking you to be critical of news sources pandering to fear, and people altering that to tell you that you have no reason to fear at all.
Was the part where Mike said 'There will be no comment response video' fake news?
Dhruv Mehta I think they are expecting a lot of vitriol from this one which is strange seeing how idea channel comments are geared for discussion.
This video has a highly American slant (understandably), and doesn't discuss the role of public service news outlets such as BBC or the Swedish SVT and SR. Neither of the latter two are ad supported (and I assume the same is true of BBC). Does this in your opinion affect the political discussion in those countries?
There are quite a few scientific studies showing a correlation between public service media regimes and more culturally and politically knowledgable populaces. Public service broadcaster remove a fair few of the filters from the equation.
VorpalGun when the left accuse the BBC of being in the pockets of the wealthy right wing politicians, and the right accuse the BBC of being run by loony lefties, you know you've found one of the most unbiased sources in the world.
Idea Channel is PBS
You guys do realize that NPR and PBS don't really qualify, because of their relatively tiny budgets and audiences?
PBS and NPR also don't get that much money from the government. They're supported by corporations and viewers like you.
Thank you for this video. You making the internet (and by extension, the world) a better place with videos like this.
1: When you described the "propaganda function", I thought back to those Saturday morning cartoons I grew up with in the late Cold War era (born '79). The theme was the same across the board: there are good guys, there are bad guys, good guys win and you're one of the good guys. Fast forward to today, and we are among the most decisive times I have ever seen. The us changes, the them changes, but it's almost like that distilled tale told over and over made us think that's how life should be.
So is fake news a condition that an organization could take on in a certain article or a description of that entire organization?
Very good job on the script Mike! I think it's going to be a good point of reference for the present and the near future. A couple of things to point out:
- Very nice to make 0 references to the current political climate and situation (just a couple ambiguous ones at the beggining) so this will more calm and less flame war but although i can understand why you aren't going to make comment responses for this one i don't know if it's really the better option or idea.
- Thank you a lot for delimiting every time the differences between real life reporting and fake news reporting. Nowadays i feel like many people firstly believe that everything is white or black and secondly don't seem to know or realize the great difficulties associated with responsible journalism. A good investigative journalist has to skirt to all the different obstacles of different opinions, conflicts of interests on sources and many other things but at the end reality has many different perspectives accessible (there is not possible 100% complete objective news) and them having an opinion doesn't mean they're trying to convert you to their cause. Also real journalism is accountable and that's extremely important, fake news just get away with it with no problem.
- Unfortunately, the most worrying stuff of this false positive (fakes) on news is how many people when confronted their point of view with reality they get to the point of denying complete videos with all the context and not editing just by doing the most extreme of mental gymnastics.
Anyways, thanks for the video. Very insigthful. Also showing how good old Chomsky was already talking about this 30 years ago.
I mostly checked the attribution. And there's always good ole snopes.com
Love the tips in this video.